Consumer Alert

This article is part of the Center for Media & Democracy's spotlight on front groups and corporate spin.

Consumer Alert may have ceased operations. Its former website, www.consumeralert.org, is no longer online. Its website was operational until at least February 2006 (according to the archives at: http://tinyurl.com/2q6soe and http://tinyurl.com/3daeo4, which the owners of the CA domain have blocked).

Consumer Alert, founded in 1977, is a national, non-profit organization concerned with "excessive growth of government regulation at the national and state levels." According to its website, Consumer Alert's mission is to "enhance understanding and appreciation of the consumer benefits of a market economy so that individuals and policymakers rely more on private rather than government approaches to consumer concerns."[1]

Consumer Alert, "formerly headed by John Sununu and funded by such companies as Chevron, Eli Lilly and Phillip Morris, has fought mandatory air bags on the grounds that their expense is a burden to the consumers they claim to represent" (Washington Babylon, 13).

Consumer Alert operates the National Consumer Coalition, a collection of front groups and industry friendly organizations that seek to advance "solutions to real consumer problems and seeks the most cost-effective manner in which to achieve desired results." In April 2004, NCC revived the Cooler Heads Coalition.

Consumer Alert published a "declaration of support" for agricultural biotechnology signed by over 600 scientists including signatories from Monsanto (67 individuals), Pioneer Hibred (22 individuals), Dow (21 individuals) and Amercian Council on Science and Health (2 individuals)

In 1998 Philip Morris was canvassing possible organisations that might be an ally in its Youth Smoking Prevention programs. A memo from Roy Marden described Consumer Alert as a "DC free market consumer group, antithesis of the Nader effort. Perhaps we could involve them in an effort re responsible corporate activity w/consumers in mind, etc. Long-term recipient of (modest) PM funding". [2]

Documents Contained at the Anti-Environmental Archives

Documents written by or referencing this person or organization are contained in the Anti-Environmental Archive, launched by Greenpeace on Earth Day, 2015. The archive contains 3,500 documents, some 27,000 pages, covering 350 organizations and individuals. The current archive includes mainly documents collected in the late 1980s through the early 2000s by The Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR), an organization that tracked the rise of the so called "Wise Use" movement in the 1990s during the Clinton presidency. Access the index to the Anti-Environmental Archives here.